Modest Magic Terrain - part 3

Just finished airbrushing the first piece of my new terrain, I decided to go for silver as I had plenty of it to spare

Canoptek Spyder - Finished

Despite spending most of the last day or two playing about with my new terrain Ive also managed to finish painting my first Canoptek Spyder as well. I've never actually used one of these in a game yet (and I've got three of them now) so might have to try them out at some point soon.

Pictures of Modest Magic Terrain

I managed to get my new terrain assembled yesterday, sort of.

This is how it arrived and I placed a miniature in one of the photos to give an idea of scale

New terrain from Modest Magic

I recently ordered the Alien Civilization Type 1 from Modest Magic and it just arrived this morning. I haven't had chance to take a proper look at it yet (still at work at the moment) but will do so later on and will hopefully get some pictures taken and uploaded of it all over the next few days.

Some new rules : "Rules to live your (painting) life by "

I came across this article: http://the-responsible-one.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/rules-to-live-your-painting-life-by.html earlier on in the week and I really liked it as Ive found myself in a similar conundrum in recent months. My ever-growing model collection is now getting to a point where Im starting to have issues remembering where I am up to with certain models/units and also where to store them. I would also like to keep a better rein on how much Im spending each month and where it is all going to be stored. My wife and I have a baby on the way in March so these are two very crucial things that I need to get under control.

So, inspired by this article (thanks very much to "The Responsible One" :-) ) I have now decided to try and implement some of these rules myself:

• No miniatures without a storage solution

This was something I was already trying hard to work towards anyway and so far pretty much all of my Necrons, and definitely all of the Ultramarines army that I started last year and never really finished, are able to be stored away in a stack of KR Multicase foam. I have bought a few of the new Chaos Space Marine models in recent weeks though so Im going to have to purchase some more foam very soon for those.
Also, at some point in the near future Im expecting the arrival of the first wave of Sedition Wars so these will also need some trays purchasing.
Hopefully sticking to this rule will help to stop the wife getting annoyed by the ever growing sprawl of miniatures that are currently spread across two different rooms in the house.

• Don't finish the month with more work than you started it

This isnt a rule Ive ever worked to before but its definitely something Im going to aim for from now on. At the moment I still have a bit of a backlog of stuff that still isn't even built (although I have been trying to rectify that this week) and absolutely loads of things to paint.
This is how The Responsible One (TRO) explains this rule on his blog:
"So, now I have a reserve project list. Each single model, unit or thing counts as a project. I can add projects at the start of a month, but it must be replacing an existing closed project."

I may add some additional rules to this as time goes on but the first thing I need to do is create a spreadsheet to keep track of what Im currently working on and what stage of progress it is at. Hopefully I will be able to stick to updating this on a regular basis and to abiding by these rules.

Tutorial - Textured Basing part 1

I've been asked a few times recently about how I've done the basing on my Necrons so I thought I would try my hands at writing a bit of a tutorial about it. I've pretty much done with basing most of my Necrons now but I've recently picked up a few of the new Chaos models I'll use one of those as an example.

The 'secret ingredient' that I use is the Vallejo Textures range. I picked up a couple of tubs of this stuff from Boyes in Scarborough a few months ago and I've used it ever since. The tubs are pretty big and only cost £6.25 each so they are much better value than the texture paints from GW.